Anything You Can Walk Away From
by tarsus4survivor
Summary: Dean, Sam, and Cas escape a facility after they were captured. Hurt!Cas.


_A/N: They were captured by humans but that's basically all the premise I've got. They didn't check Dean as well as they should have and he seizes the opportunity to escape when they're finally left alone._

* * *

Dean hurriedly unlocks his cell, throwing it open and running to unlock Cas's and then Sam's. Sam pushes out and Dean is walking down the hallway, "Come on, let's…" he passes Cas's cell. The angel hasn't moved. He's still sitting against the far wall, legs spread out in front of him. Dean stops, "Cas?"

Cas is looking at him but he's buried in shadow and Dean can't really see him. He can hear the tremor in his voice, though. "Go. Go without me."

Dean pulls the door open, "Cas, what's wrong?" Sam walks in right beside him.

"I…" Cas hesitates.

Dean is close enough now that he can see somewhat. He drops down next to Cas, a hand on his arm, but his eyes on the mangled legs smeared with blood.

"I don't think I can walk."

Sam is crouched on the other side of Cas. His hand squeezes Cas's shoulder.

Dean shakes his head a little, choking down bile and anger. "Okay. That's okay. Me and Sam, we've got you. We've got you, Cas." Dean's hand hovers over Cas's legs because he's not sure how to lift without hurting him. He can't. He slides an arm behind Castiel's back. "Put your arm across my shoulders, Cas."

Dean has to bend down to allow the movement. He grips Cas with the arm at his back and slips another beneath his legs. "Sorry."

Sam helps lift until Dean is up and standing. "I got him," says Dean, and bobs his head toward the cell door. "Lead us outta here."

They turn left out of the cell.

Cas is bleeding. Dean can feel it seeping through his sleeve. He's cold, too, and Dean shifts his grip to hold him closer. The hallway is lit and Cas's legs look so much worse in the light. If it was Dean or Sam injured like that, they'd be dead. Cas is just cold. And he's breathing heavily, actually. And his grip on Dean's shoulder doesn't feel very strong, but it's not shaking.

Sam starts up a staircase and Dean goes to follow. They're lucky no one was down there. They reach the top, and their luck stops when three agents turn into the hallway from the opposite end, nearly colliding with Sam. Dean drops to his knees and sets Cas on the floor against the wall.

Sam is already fighting. It's too close-range for guns and Dean is grateful. He moves to help Sam, punching someone in the face and wrestling them down, trying to grab the angel blade at their waist. These guys were probably on their way to torture Cas some more. He punches harder. He gets the blade and throws it at the man going around him toward Cas. He falls with a choked cry. But the movement cost Dean and now the guy he'd had beneath him has twisted so that he's on top.

Sam gets his own blade and promptly stabs the man he's fighting in the chest. When he drops, Sam moves to stab the man on top of Dean. Dean pushes him off and takes the hand up that Sam is offering. "Thanks."

They retrieve the other two blades and Dean pushes one into Cas's hand before he picks the angel back up with a grunt. "That wasn't so bad."

Sam raises an eyebrow. He's rolling over one of the bodies. "Strange," he says, "they don't have guns."

Cas frowns. "What were they doing?" He's not speaking as clearly as usual—he sort of pants the words.

Dean aborts a shrug and shakes his head, keeping his suspicions about torture to himself. "I don't see why we should care. Let's just keep going."

Sam glances at him, but he stands and nods and—they should probably move the bodies but Dean's not sure they have the time or anywhere to move them to so they just turn the corner and walk on.

The corridors are starting to branch now, and Dean has no clue how to get out. None of them do. Sam mostly keeps left.

They have to backtrack a few times to avoid agents, when Sam glances around a corner and sees a group.

Cas is starting to feel heavy. Dean transfers him to Sam and takes over leading, trying to ignore the bloodstains on his jacket.

Around the corner is a large room. Dean can see a door labeled 'exit' and wonders if they should risk the open space or backtrack and try to find a safer route. When ten agents pour into the room through another hallway, his mind is made for him. They go back. A few corners later, they run into more agents. Six. Dean barrels into them with the blade before they have time to react.

Sam sets Cas down and pulls someone off of Dean, and then they're fighting shoulder to shoulder, trying to block the hallway so no one gets through to Cas.

These guys have guns, which Dean realizes when Sam takes an invisible shove and cries out, the gunshot snapping off the walls. It hits his shoulder.

So now Dean just has to get a gun. It's hard for them to get clear shots through the tangle of limbs and Dean is grateful that they're not taking much risk with them. He's pushing against someone, trying to stab them when a bullet grazes his arm. He almost drops the blade. The person takes full advantage. Dean gets pinned to the wall.

That's when the alarm goes off.

The man he's fighting startles just minutely, his hold loosening a fraction, and that's all Dean needs to shove him off and stab him.

Sam is on the ground, bodies writhing on top him. Dean can't get past the two men he's fighting. One glance, Sam's about to be stabbed. The next glance, a blade has appeared through someone's throat and they're collapsed next to Sam. Sam shoves the still moving man off of him. And that's three plus two dead plus… Dean stabs one of the men in front of him, kicks the other one, and turns because one is missing and maybe Sam killed him but Dean can't be sure. And shit, Cas threw his blade because Sam still has his and these guys have regular daggers. Cas is—

Cas has crawled over to the man Dean killed and now has a gun and another dead man in front of him.

Okay, then. Dean turns back.

Sam gets a gun soon after that and it's all downhill from there.

Dean drops down next to Cas, "You hit?"

Cas shakes his head. "I'm fine."

There's a trail of blood from where he crawled to get the gun. He's not fine. But it doesn't look like he has any new injuries so Dean rolls over to paw at Sam's coat, "How bad's the shoulder?"

Sam winces and shoves him off, "I think it lodged in the bone. I'm okay."

"You get hit anywhere else?"

"Nah. A few cuts. You?"

"Just a graze."

"You need to go," says Cas, "the alarm…"

Dean frowns at him. "_We _need to go."

"I'm slowing you down. Making you vulnerable."

"No way, man. You just saved both our lives in that fight. Here," Dean goes around the bodies and divests them of weapons. He crams most of the knives into the pockets of Cas's trenchcoat. "Don't think I didn't see you throw that angel blade through that guy's throat. It'll be nice to have some long-range backup for once."

"Both of you have injured arms," says Cas.

Dean looks at him. "Shut up or I'll drag you."

Sam has wrapped something around his shoulder and they've loaded up as much as they can, so Dean kneels next to Cas. "Give me your arm."

Dean settles a hand under his knees and another under his back and hoists him up. He starts walking down the hallway just behind Sam, back to the room where he'd seen the exit. "You think it's weird that none of these guys had cell phones?"

Sam frowns. "Yes."

The room has maybe fifteen people. Dean sets Cas down against the wall and pulls out a gun. Sam nods, his own weapon at the ready. "Okay," Dean whispers, "Take aim."

They fire and men start dropping and pretty soon the rest are running for cover and shooting back and it's a fire-fight. Dean pulls his head and arm back around the corner when he's peppered with fire. "This sucks," he says.

Sam is switching guns. "It'd suck worse if they were vampires." He grins.

"Seriously? Right now with that joke, are you kidding me?"

Cas pulls back from shooting with a sharp inhale and a bullet graze on his cheek. "I don't understand."

Sam's grin grows wider, "Well you see," he says, and peeks back around the corner to return fire, "vampires—"

"No," says Dean, firing just across from him, "No, shut up, you are not teaching him that joke."

They keep firing.

A minute later, Cas glances over at Sam. "Vampires suck?" he asks.

Dean groans.

Sam grins. "They suck blood. It's a play on words."

"And it's funny?"

"Yes. And it annoyed Dean."

Dean shakes his head.

His leg is warm, pressed close to Cas. Wet. He pulls back and looks down and there's a puddle of blood on the floor. "Shit."

Sam flicks him a glance.

Dean is looking at Cas—and Cas is shaking. Badly. His hands and arms and legs and it's impressive that his aim hasn't suffered.

"Cas, look at me."

Cas pulls back from shooting. He's pale.

"Sam, keep firing. Cas, you hit?"

Cas shakes his head.

"Where's this blood coming from? ...Sam, keep firing."

Dean checks his torso first. "You sure you weren't hit by anything in that last fight?"

"Nothing," says Cas.

There's too much blood and Dean has no idea where it's coming from. It's not from himself, right? He pats his torso down. "Well _I'm_ not hit, Cas. You're the one shaking. Do you hurt anywhere?"

"Just my legs," he says, and Dean could shoot himself. His legs.

"Worse than before?" Dean's already patting them down. They're bad, but they shouldn't be bleeding like—his hand slides into a pool of blood. The pants are drenched. "Shit."

It's not a bullet wound. Or a knife wound. Dean doesn't know what it is. "You were crawling," says Dean. "You must've knocked something loose or shifted a bone fragment or something." Dean tears off his jacket and ties it around the wound. It's already drenched. "God, Cas, you're really bleeding. I think you nicked an artery."

This goes on much longer, Cas isn't gonna be coming out the other end. He needs medical care now.

"Sam, how many?"

"Five."

Dean slides Cas away from the corner and climbs over him. He peeks around and fires off a few rounds. He pulls back and glances at Cas, then turns back to Sam. "Okay, well I'm gettin' bored of this. I'm gonna go out there. Cover me."

Sam glances at Cas. He nods. "Yeah, okay. Just be smart about it."

"Okay."

Cas tries to scoot back over so he can shoot around the wall.

Dean stops him. "Not you, Cas. You're liable to hit me, how bad you're shaking. I need you to cover this end. We could have agents coming from the other direction at any time. Keep your eye on that doorway," Dean points past Sam.

Cas nods. Shit, he looks bad. "Okay."

The men they're shooting at have overturned tales or are pressed up in alcoves by the wall. Dean barrels into the room, hunching low, shooting at anything that moves. He slams up against one of the tables, hiding behind it, trusting Sam to shoot if the man on the other side pops up. Dean takes a moment, braces, and then shoots around the side of the table, taking the cry as a good sign to spin around it.

A man peers out from behind another one and Dean shoots him immediately. He grabs the table, turns it, and pushes it with him to give himself some cover. A man moves out from an alcove and Sam shoots him. Dean pushes the table right up to another one, taking out the man behind it and then ducking down. When he hears a shot from behind him, he sinks low and cranes around the side. His first shot misses, but he waits. The man doesn't come back out so Dean shoves up and charges toward him, narrowly missing a bullet to the throat. Dean takes him out.

The moment the room is clear, Sam has crossed the doorway to kneel next to Cas, inspecting the wound in his leg. Dean races over. Cas looks worse. Shaking and pale and—Dean crouches next to him, pulls his arm over his shoulder, and lifts him up. "Let's go."

Cas is freezing. The shaking could be because he's cold, right?

Sam goes out the door first, holding it open for Dean. It's a parking lot, thank god. It's also dark outside, so it's probably night-time, so there's nobody here. They stop by one of the cars. "Sammy. Lock-picks are in my pocket."

Sam fishes them out and soon enough the car door pulls open without an alarm. Dean and Sam settle Cas in the backseat. "I'll drive," says Dean, and goes up front. Sam lifts Cas's legs and sets them on top of his lap.

Dean grins when he flips the sun screen and the keys fall into his lap. Idiots.

He puts the car in drive and pulls away.

"I can feel my grace now," says Cas, "I think... the building was warded."

"That's awesome." Sam is pressing hard against the wound in his leg, "Can you stop the bleeding?"

Cas nods. "I'm… trying."

A few minutes later, Cas slumps.

"Cas?"

Sam feels for a pulse. "He's out." He unwraps Dean's jacket to check the wound and lets out a breath, "It stopped bleeding. He fixed it."

"Thank god."

"Where we goin', Dean?"

"I don't know. Bunker's too far. Motel? Hospital? Vet. clinic?"

"We're covered in blood. We need a change of clothes. Hospital's a bad idea, too easy to track."

Dean nods. "We'll need supplies. Money. A first aid kit. How's the shoulder?"

"It's okay."

"You light-headed?"

Sam shakes his head. "No. No, I'm really okay."

They go to a motel and patch each other up.

* * *

One month later, Cas carefully pulls his legs over the side of the bed. Sam and Dean are right in front of him, arms held out. He grabs onto them and levers himself to his feet with their help. His legs are trying to tip him back to the floor. Wobbling and cramping and off-balance. He takes a step, and Sam and Dean have to support most of his weight, but he's taking part of it. Another step. They make it all the way to the couch in the t.v. room and Cas sits. Sam pulls his legs up to lay them across the cushions.

"I'd let you pick the movie," Sam says, "but I think Dean is dead-set on Batman."

"Yeah," says Dean, rifling through some DVD's that Cas half-thinks were stolen. "You can choose which one, Cas."

"Whichever one you would like to watch, Dean."

Dean grins. "You ever seen Batman and Robin?"

Sam groans.

"No, I do not believe I have."

"Awesome." Dean puts the movie in and then settles on the floor, leaned up against the couch Cas is on. "You know, your legs will be better in no time and then we can go on a road trip to Gotham."

"Gotham's not real, Dean." Sam bends his legs and plops down next to him.

"Sure it is, it's by New York."

Sam shakes his head. "It's not."

"How would you know? You ever been there?"

"No, because it's not real."

Cas is watching the screen with an unmatched intensity. "I believe Sam is correct, Dean. The Gotham in this film is a fictional city, though there was a Gotham near Rome Italy some time ago."

Dean smirks. "There you go, then. Real."

Sam rolls his eyes.

They settle in to watch the movie. They're together and Cas is healing and that's all that matters. Everything else can wait.


End file.
